


If You're Reading This

by JungleKitty



Series: Kirk/Brandt Cycle [41]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21905206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JungleKitty/pseuds/JungleKitty
Summary: Two letters, two truth-bombs.
Relationships: Kirk/Brandt
Series: Kirk/Brandt Cycle [41]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1524224
Kudos: 2





	If You're Reading This

**Author's Note:**

> (c) 1998 Jungle Kitty. Star Trek and its characters are the property of Paramount. This not-for-profit piece of fan fiction is not intended to infringe on that ownership. The author's copyright applies only to the creative content and her original characters.
> 
> This story is one in a series about the relationship between James Kirk and Suzanne Brandt, and takes place after Star Trek: The Motion Picture (2271 onward). 
> 
> This story contains references to two earlier Kirk/Brandt stories: Star-Spangled Night (Kyros) and Blood Claim (Nevaris). As of this writing, I do not know if either of these letters will ever be delivered.

Dearest Suzanne,

If you're reading this, it means ... well, you know what it means. It's always been a toss-up which one of us would take one risk too many and I guess it's me. Unless I died peacefully in my sleep, which doesn't sound like me at all.

I'm writing this to you because I want you to _have_ something, something tangible, something you can hold in your hand.

When my brother died and I packed up his things, I found a half-completed comm on his computer, addressed to me. I copied it to a data wafer and took it with me. I knew from the datestamp that he'd started it before Deneva was invaded. He had no reason to think that he would die soon, and I knew there wouldn't be any wrenching farewell message. Still, it was several weeks before I could bring myself to view it.

When I finally did, his face appeared on the screen and he smiled and said, "Hi, Jim." God, I can hardly even write this. I turned it off and couldn't watch the rest. The image was too much. It was too real, and at the same time, completely artificial. It was Sam, thinking of me, _speaking_ to me, yet he was completely untouchable. It was a cruel mockery, and I can't describe how much it hurt to know that this was the last I would ever have of him. I never missed him more or knew with greater certainty what death meant than when I looked at that image. And I've rarely thought of Sam since without seeing a dead man saying, "Hi, Jim."

There's no comfort in holding a data wafer, Suzanne. So as you read this, know that my hand touched the paper, just as I would touch you now if I could. Maybe I will seem less dead, if there is such a thing.

I've just read what I've written, and I've certainly gotten off track here. I meant to talk about you and me, and mostly about you.

First of all, this isn't the first letter of this kind I've written to you. Gary and I recorded a couple hours' worth of "in the events" for family and friends the night before we shipped out on the Farragut. I told you how much I wished we'd slept together. Do you remember the night I'm thinking of? You had that little off-base apartment on Laramie 4 and Gary and I dropped by. We all got drunk and you made omelets, and it got too late to go back to the base. You threw a couple blankets at us and told us to flip a coin over who got the couch. I noticed that you had a double bed and asked if it wouldn't make more sense if one of us slept with you. You laughed, told me I was sleeping on the floor, and closed the bedroom door in my face. Granted we were both drunk and, if you had accepted my crude but sincere offer, the occasion probably would have been memorable for the wrong reasons, but still... I was thinking of that when I recorded the message to you. I think I thought I was being funny. Or paying you a compliment. Maybe both.

I don't know what happened to that recording. It's possible that it still exists, it's been delivered to you as instructed, and you've seen it. If so, I'm glad. Because it's still true. I still wish we'd slept together all those years ago. Because now we have, hundreds of times, and I regret every time we could have and didn't.

I wrote a second letter...well, I'm not sure exactly when. It was sometime during that period when we still believed we were just friends, even though we were burning up the subspace channels as if our lives depended on our next meeting. I won't tell you what it said. I thought I owed it to you, and it was very polite, very correct, and very obviously written by a man in serious denial of what he was feeling. I destroyed it just before I wrote the third one, and I remember being thankful that I hadn't died while it still existed. It was that awful.

Now the third one--that one was around for a while. I wrote it the first night back from our leave on Kyros. You and I have visited Kyros several times, but you know the time I'm talking about. The time I finally cornered you and made you say, "I love you." Everything changed that night, didn't it? I thought that if you said "I love you," it would make you mine. And in a way, it did. You're the one who's always talking about the power of words and their ability to "weave truth where it didn't exist before." You can be quite poetic at times. But then, so could your hero, General Patton. (I hope you're smiling at that. It's very hard to write a teasing tone of voice into a letter.)

That letter was downright corny. Hearts and flowers. Schmaltz, even. I can hardly believe I wrote it. But I've always thought they taught witchcraft at that convent--sorry, boarding school--of yours.

Several times, I was surprised that letter hadn't been delivered, but of course, that couldn't happen unless Spock and Bones were convinced I was really dead. They've kept me among the living through sheer stubbornness more times than I care to count.

And speaking of stubbornness...it's time to talk about Nevaris. Because everything changed again, didn't it? (And by the way, I know you were almost court-martialed over that. Nogura let it slip shortly after I made admiral. I think the old fox did it on purpose. His subtle way of letting me know I'd met my match in you and how entertaining he found it.)

After Nevaris, I destroyed the hearts-and-flowers letter and didn't write a new one until now. I kept meaning to, but I didn't. I didn't know what to say to you. I knew I loved you. I knew it in a way I hadn't before. We were beyond hearts and flowers, but I didn't know where we were, and I just didn't have the words. Then I was promoted and it seemed unnecessary. Bureaucrats don't need "just in case" letters.

But I'm commanding the Enterprise again and starship duty lends itself to this sort of thing.

Why did you stand by me, Suzanne, after the five-year mission ended? I broke my promise to you. I wasn't the man I told you I would be. A lot of people think Nogura forced that promotion on me, but the truth is I accepted it. I'm still not sure if you knew that. You looked so shattered when I told you about it. You even said you were sorry. I never told you the truth because I needed you so much then. My choices were your pity or your contempt, and I chose the one that would keep you in my life.

I couldn't say, "I have accepted promotion to a meaningless position because I don't know what else to do." Not when you'd risked your life and career for me only a few months earlier. But those last weeks on the Enterprise after Spock's resignation were sheer hell. I didn't realize how much I had come to rely on him. I should have stepped down or at least taken a leave, but I was determined to bring the Enterprise in. And when I did, when you were there waiting for me, when I took you in my arms and kissed you in front of the C-in-C and didn't care what he thought, I knew I wanted you beside me and my career could go hang. Which it did.

Bones told me I'd made a mistake and I didn't speak to him for nearly a year. You kept silent and I almost smothered you. You never called me a liar or a coward, but I was both then. For all the joy of the past two years, there was something missing, and I think it was me. But I didn't know that, so I played Admiral, became more and more miserable, and finally asked you to marry me. When you said no, I blamed you for all of my unhappiness. I told myself that I'd taken a desk job for you, so that we could be together. But the truth was I wanted to lay down and play dead for a while, and let you call the shots. I don't think you meant to hurt me when you said, "You don't need a wife, you need a command," but I do think you meant to shock me. I think you wanted me to wake up and _do_ something. So I did. I walked out.

And you let me. If you meant to make me see how lost I was without you, you succeeded. You've told me that you were miserable then too, so why did we keep pushing each other away? Is it as simple as neither one of us being able to say "uncle?"

Remember that night at the Ryonni embassy? We hadn't spoken in weeks. You asked me to dance just the way you always did at those things when I was stuck talking to some old bore. "Excuse me, Admiral," you'd say. "They're playing our song." That night they were playing "Starlight Serenade," which isn't our song, but it's closer than "The Washington Post March" and "Hot Saturday Mama." And believe me, I still get questions about those.

But that night, you took my hand and I really thought that we were going to be all right. So instead of dancing, we went out onto the terrace and kissed. I thought of all the reunions where we were practically on fire for each other and I wanted you more than I ever had. But I had to win the point, I had to have my own way, so I asked if you'd changed your mind about marriage. You looked at me so coldly, Suzanne, and your voice was like ice when you said, "Don't ever do this to me again." You walked away from me and I thought it was over.

What would have happened if you hadn't gone on the Teslaran mission, or if it hadn't ended so disastrously? Where would we be now if you had dealt with it calmly and rationally? Why did you have to fall apart in order for me to pull myself together? To this day, I don't know what you intended to do, and I don't think you do either, but the sight of you with your medals in one hand and a phaser in the other will give me nightmares for the rest of my life.

After Bones talked to you, he told me that, in his opinion, you never really intended to do anything. You were just scared and confused and didn't know where to turn. "Point her in a different direction, Jim," he said. And I realized how badly I had failed you, and by failing you, I had lost myself.

What if Commander Wallis had gone with you on that mission, died with the rest of them, and hadn't been there to call me afterwards? What if someone else had learned what it means to be needed by you, to make a difference in your life? Because that's what made the difference in mine. When you let me bring you back from that hell you were in, I realized what had been missing from my life. Not just you and not just command. I needed to do something that mattered.

So here's what I finally figured out. I know why I love you. Yes, I remember you making a smug little speech once about me getting my own way too often not to love you. And you were right. You _are_ a challenge and I've always found that irresistible. But there's something more, and it took that knock-down, drag-out argument we had after Nevaris to make me see it and almost losing you forever to make me really understand it.

You make me whole. And I'm not talking about that "two halves of one soul" business. We're too much alike for that. One soul would be too crowded for the two of us. We'd argue over territory just like we gripe about who's worse at sharing a blanket.

After Nevaris, we talked about fidelity, remember? And it made me think about the other women who have been in my life. (I know the look you have on your face right now, Brat, because I've seen it every time this subject comes up. Face it, some of those women were important to me and it's no insult to you.)

There have been women who loved me but, for one reason or another, didn't really know who I was. Edith and Miramanee didn't even know I was in Starfleet. They didn't know there was such a thing, but it's part of who I am. And there have been women who knew who I was and loved me despite certain things. Or stayed around until those things intruded. Like Carol and Janice. I'm not blaming them. I wasn't right for either of them, and, in each case, we were very hurt in the process of finding that out.

But you know exactly who I am and you love me for it. You told me as much. I believe your exact words were, "I love all of you. Not just the comfortable parts." You embraced all the pieces of me, and they finally fit.

A few years ago, your brother Dennis warned me that you could really take me apart. I laughed and said, "She already has. And put me back together the way she likes me." At the time, I didn't know how true that was. I learned that after Nevaris.

But it wasn't until we split up and found each other again that I knew there was something more, something that had been missing until then. You finally let me love all the parts of you, even the ones that you don't like. I love you for doing that for me and letting me do that for you.

I know it hasn't been easy loving me. You've told me so. And it hasn't always been a picnic in the park with you, either. We're both stubborn and proud, and we've let those things rule too often. But I think we've finally learned how to give to each other, maybe even how to give in to each other.

Do you want to know what memory I'm taking with me on this voyage? Less than a week ago, we went to an SCA fair. They played a shadow dance, and I wouldn't do it. You were annoyed with me for refusing, and I was annoyed with you for even asking. A shadow dance, of all things. To hold you _that_ close, _that_ way? No. Not in public. But we danced to the next song, trying to act as if we weren't pissed off. And in the middle of it, we started laughing because the lyrics were so perfect. They were about us, right then, loving each other and irritated as hell about it. "It Had To Be You." That was the name of the song. I'd never heard it before, but I remember holding you in my arms and hearing the line, "With all your faults, I love you still." And I felt better about myself and you and us than I ever had before. That's our song. That's what you've given me.

I hope you never get this letter, Suzanne. I hope to live much longer than humanly possible and write several more. I hope to live at least long enough to tell you all this in person.

I love you. That's what it all comes down to. I don't know what kind of afterlife there is, but it won't be paradise without you.

All my love,   
Jim

***

My dearest Jim, my heart, my own,

I bet that made you sit up straight, didn't it? I may be gone, but I'd like to think that I can still surprise you.

But you are all those things, and more. It's just not in me to say it. I called you "love" once, just once, to see what it felt like. You thought I was talking to the dog. So I've stayed away from those little endearments. I've had to put it all into your name--Jim--and my name for you--JT. A lot to ask of three syllables.

I've never written one of these before. There. I've surprised you again, haven't I? I could never see the point. For a long time, I thought that if you felt that strongly about someone, you should tell him while you can. And I've done that with the other people in my life, like Dennis and Jack. It made perfect sense. Until I found out how I felt about you and couldn't say it. I couldn't write it either. I tried. I wrote "I love you, Jim" on a piece of paper. It felt silly. It looked silly. I thought, "What's next, Brandt? 'Mrs. James T. Kirk' with little hearts all around it?"

Even when I almost died and made poor Jack promise he would tell you, I didn't tell you afterwards. I didn't think I ever would. I'd never said it to anyone, and you'd heard it from too many others.

Then you played that dirty trick on me our first time on Kyros and I thought that was it. I said it. I said, "I love you, Jim," and you said, "I love you, Suzanne," and I thought we were in the clear.

But I was wrong. It's not enough to say it. You must write it down. And I learned that in Special Ops, of all places.

Remember how we kept logs from our first days at the Academy to get into the habit? In Special Ops, you have to break that habit. We don't keep logs while we're on assignment. Afterwards, yes, immediately. Written reports and the most painstaking debriefings you can imagine. Because we have to rely on memory. A lot of my missions have been "bare-ass"--and that doesn't mean what you're thinking. It means you carry little or no equipment, and _never_ a log. To go on that kind of assignment, you have to be trained in directed memory. You've always teased me about being a human tricorder when it comes to remembering events and conversations, but directed memory is different. You learn to remember clearly and accurately, without assigning interpretation or value. To remember with indifference. I don't want to be remembered with indifference.

Nor do I want to be mis-remembered. I was six years old when my mother died, and I remember her through a child's eyes. I think much of what I remember never happened. I wish I had some way of knowing the truth.

So that's what this letter is. The truth. Years from now, if you're ever wondering why I loved you or how I loved you, or was it as good and bad as you think it was, read this. It's the truth, as far as I know it, and as much as I know of it right now.

As for a _handwritten_ letter...Special Ops again. When I die, they'll have legal access to everything I own. Every record, letter, picture, diary, and computer file, including erasures and deletions. My fellow spooks will sweep the apartment clean. But this will be in Jack's safe deposit box with your name on it. And his letter to Gail is in mine. I don't intend to write down anything that will endanger the Federation, and this belongs to you. I'm keeping this back from them, JT, and maybe it will comfort you a little to know that you're not the only one I've done that to.

You've had more of me than anyone else has, and I'm sorry for the times that wasn't enough. At times I've tried to be what you wanted and other times what you needed, but I've always held something back. I regret that you sensed that, but you were always too damn perceptive for your own good. I thought I was being true to myself, but I was really just afraid of becoming nothing but a part of you. You're that strong. I needed to keep something for myself, a little bit to help me through if you walked out or were killed.

And when you did walk out, after I so gracelessly turned down your proposal, I found out that I hadn't kept enough. But, Jim, if I'd said yes, if we'd gotten married, I don't think you would've gotten the Enterprise back. You simply would not have tried hard enough. I was miserable without you, but a part of me was glad. The part that knew you shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Why the hell did you ever accept dirtside duty? I know Nogura didn't force it on you. You were the biggest hero in the fleet. You could have had anything you wanted and you couldn't have wanted Fleet Ops. There was some reason you took that job, and I pray that it wasn't me. I have enough guilt for not throwing you out the first night and telling you not to come back until you had a command. I should have, for both our sakes, but I thought we needed to be together for a while. We'd been through so much. But you were missing a few crucial things, and I pretended I could take the place of them--your command, your ship, your friends, and about four hundred other people.

But there were some good things about being together, weren't there? There were moments that I'll treasure for the rest of my life. But at the core of it, we weren't really ourselves. We were like children playing house. All make-believe. I felt guilty every time I went off-world, and I even tried to refuse the longer assignments. But Skorheim wouldn't let me. We've had some angels on our side, Jim, and he's one of them.

"I'm turning down this request, captain," he said. "Whatever problems you're having, your job isn't one of them. It would be unfair to everyone involved if I accepted this."

He made it sound like he was thinking of my officers, but that's not what he meant. He was saying that it was unfair to you. So he pushed me back into the arena, and you and I went a few more rounds.

We were too evenly matched, Jim. There couldn't be a winner, so we had to settle for mutual devastation.

I know you asked me to marry you for all the wrong reasons, but when I think of that cruel remark about you needing a command instead of a wife, I could bite my tongue off. I didn't know that you'd just petitioned Nogura for a command and been turned down. I'm so sorry, Jim. I have such lousy timing. I stood by you the entire time when you needed a kick in the pants, and I kicked you when you needed my support and understanding.

So it was my own fault that I was alone when I had to face up to my ultimate failure as an officer.

I try not to torture myself over why things happened the way they did, but I can't help wondering. Would it have been different if I hadn't walked away from you that night at the Ryonni embassy, if we'd somehow made up, if you had been there when I returned from Teslara? If you were at the apartment, waiting for me, would I have gone back to my office after the debriefing? Would I have confronted that wall of decorations, condemning me for not dying with the rest of my team? I doubt it. Because I remember all the reunions, the frantic lovemaking, hearing you say my name over and over, and feeling like we'd won some sort of victory just by being together. If you had been there to make me glad I was alive, maybe I could've dealt with the losses of that mission. I'm not blaming you. I was the one who walked away. It seemed important to prove that I could go it alone. Now I know that I can't. I thank god that Jack called you, that you pulled me back from the edge, and that you stayed with me.

It was the staying with me that did it. Any decent being would have tried to do something, although you're probably the only one who would have thought to simply order me to put the phaser down. But I've always been a sucker for your arrogance. Even at the Academy, you were the only one I let boss me around. You counted on that, didn't you?

But afterwards, not everyone would have stayed around. You did. You stayed, and you waited for me to realize how much I needed you. I knew I wanted you--I always have, ever since the day you sat down next to me in Freshman Warp Physics. But needing someone--anyone--isn't something I've ever been comfortable with. It's easier not to. But I do need you, and now I know it, and you can thank your patron saint, Leonard McCoy, for that.

The good doctor has an interesting bedside manner. You're used to him, but I didn't know how tough he could be. And he's sneaky, too. He started out very patient and sympathetic. He asked me why I locked myself in my office all night with a fully-charged phaser. I told him I over-reacted.

"It's a little hard to over-react to the cold-blooded murder of twenty-two people," he said. God, he was sly. "Every hostage and all your officers. And then to be told that they died simply to show how sincerely their captors believed in their cause. To be sent back alive so that you could convey that message. What do you think would have been an appropriate reaction to that?"

I said something about taking some time off or resigning.

"Or maybe just talking to someone. Someone who knows what it's like to lose people under his command. Someone who cares enough about you to drag me here from Georgia so that this won't go into your record. Someone who wants me to tell him that the woman he's in love with isn't going to spend the next six months in a psychiatric ward."

I told him I got the point. But he didn't think I did.

"I've seen Jim in just about every bad situation imaginable, but I never thought I'd see him white with fear. But when I got here, he was. He loves you, Suzanne. And I finally stopped counting how many times you called his name while you were sedated. Now I don't know what went wrong between the two of you, but what you had together is worth getting back. And if you don't try, you're a damn fool."

He was right, but he was wrong, too. I think we were right for each other two years ago and we're right for each other now, but at that moment, we hadn't been for some time. We just couldn't admit it. Never say die, that's us. I think we needed that time apart, horrible as it was.

After Leonard left and we were alone together for a few days, you got this look on your face and I knew you wanted to talk. Seriously. About Us with a capital U. I was terrified that you'd bring up marriage again. I couldn't take another ultimatum. I think I would've said yes rather than face that.

But you were smarter than that. I'll never forget what you said.

"When you gave up command of the Wozniak, I asked you why and you said you were tired of feeling rootless. You had the best of both worlds in Special Ops. And that's what I want now. When I had the Enterprise, I didn't want anything more. Or maybe I was afraid to want anything more. When that ended, I had you and I tried to make you be everything. That's why I was so insistent on getting married. And you were right to refuse me.

"I _am_ going to get another command, Suzanne. I'm not sure how, but I know I will. And I'm going to have you in my life, too. Because without you, I'm rootless. A command won't mean much without you, because it won't really matter if I come back or not, unless I'm coming back to you."

Then you gave me that smile, the one that says you know you're going to win. "And you feel the same way about me. I'm not asking you to admit it, and don't even think about denying it, because it's the truth. We need each other, we love each other, and we belong together."

Wasn't it wonderful after that? All those nights of thinking and plotting, trying to figure out a way to put you back at the helm of a starship. It's the closest we've ever come to serving together. I don't know why Command has such a bug up its ass over fraternization within a chain of command. We did some of our best thinking after fraternizing. And I think we would've succeeded, too, if V'ger hadn't beaten us to it.

I know you'll never forget the day you left on that assignment, but I'll tell you what I remember. I remember you came into my office, looking ten years younger. You waited until the doors shut and then you yelled, "I got it!" I knew you'd come all that way, trying to look like a serious man going on an important mission, and I knew the minute you left, that's who you would be. But right then, you were overjoyed and completely full of yourself. I saw the boy I remembered and the man I knew you to be. Poor V'ger never stood a chance.

Thank you for staying long enough to throw me on the desk and fuck the living daylights out of me. Hmmm... I guess that sounded a little crude, didn't it? But that's what you did. And I loved it. I didn't even mind when I hit my head on the corner. I hope you didn't mind that I laughed through a lot of it, because I couldn't help it. I was so damn happy.

I was there later that day to see you off, did you know that? I made Jack go with me. Good thing, too, because if he hadn't been there, I probably would have cried. You, Brandt? Yes, me. You've turned me upside down--literally and figuratively--and anything could happen. So watch yourself, JT. Fair warning.

I almost cried anyway, when the Enterprise sailed out of sight and the space dock doors closed. Suddenly I felt cold and alone and sick with worry. It didn't feel good, but it felt right. I understood what you meant about making it matter whether you came back or not. You deserve to have someone feeling cold and alone and sick with worry. I'm glad it's me.

I thought about the time you and Gary and I watched a starship launch. You'd seen it before, but that was a first for Gary and me. We were too young to think about what those people were facing and how many of them wouldn't come back. I'm older now and I know just how bad it is out there, but it's where you belong, so I didn't cry. I cheered. Jack said that if Gail was ever that happy to see him go off-world, he'd be worried.

But you came home alive. And more alive than you'd been in a long time. You had your command, your ship, your friends, and, most importantly, your sense of purpose. And you didn't need me to be anyone but myself. I think we finally found ourselves. Domestic bliss isn't for us, and we were foolish to try it.

You're right, Jim. Maybe it's not true of everyone else, but you need your pain. For the past two years, the only place you could get it was from me. I thank god that's over and we're whole again.

I've never asked you this before, but please come home safely. Please let me be the one who makes a mistake and jumps out of the way a little too late.

Please read this, Jim, and know that I love you.

Your own Brat,  
Suzanne


End file.
